Newsday - Air pollution ‘severe’ in Delhi - BBC Sounds

Government officials in India are holding emergency meetings to discuss further measures to reduce a thick haze of air pollution over the country's capital, Delhi.

The city's air quality index has been at severe plus level for several days.

Primary schools have already been closed, and construction projects have now stopped, while diesel vehicles and commercial trucks have been banned from entering the city. Half of all government and private employees have been told to work from home.

Air quality plummeted last week due to stubble burning by farmers and air pollution from traffic and industry, with little wind to dissipate the blanket of smog.

Jyoti Pande Lavakare is co-founder of Care for Air, a non-profit committed to clean air in Delhi and author of, Breathing Here Is Injurious to Your Health. She told Newsday: “We can’t breathe here…it really feels like we are smothering in toxic air and I’m not exaggerating when I say this is making all of us sick…This is not a winter-only problem…pollution load in India through the year, in every part of India, not just north India, is extremely high.”

She adds: “Of course there’s a solution. This isn’t rocket science and let’s not forget India has managed to send several rockets up to the moon and I’m sure that the government can provide clean air for people to breathe. Unfortunately, we are not growing the right crop. We’re growing the wrong crop, in the wrong state and at the wrong time.”